This isn’t one of the most exciting posts we will ever post but it’s certainly one that will interest one or to music fans from Manchester. Resident Advisor speak to Sam Kandel, the co-founder of the biggest club series ever to hit the UK, The Warehouse Project in the latest of their RA Exchange podcast series.

Creative Viewing is heavily inspired by electronic music. So alongside the features in theblog section, we will also feature a music section where we post the music that is on our mind at the time. The first entry is a new remix from Maceo Plex of “Murr – Dive into the Deepest” out now on Thoughtless Music that he has been smashing out since the summer in Ibiza. It’s also in his Mixmag December mix.

I won’t be providing reviews of releases, just posting a short paragraph about the track & previews so you can listen to it. I’ll leave the reviews to the people at real serious music blogs that actually want to write them.

BPM Festival in Mexico just looks ridiculous! I love that word! It sums up everything in life that just doesn’t seem fair! All the best things in life are UNFAIR and RIDICULOUS. Richie Hawtin and Dubfire DJ’d for two hours in a TACO RESTURANT! Waaah! Ridiculous! (See picture above).

If we could all afford a ten day trip to Mexico life would be pretty good like, but we can’t. We’ve all bought ourselves winter jumpers and decided to hibernate and wait until May when the Ibiza season starts again. So for the people who can’t be running around like a nutter partying in the jungle at BPM, (which is most of my Facebook feed), the good people at Be-at-Tv have gone and put webcams about the whole festival and streamed it live. However, their site doesn’t work on a mobile or iPad which is not really good enough in 2014! Boiler Room works on an iPad and it has a Soundcloud page so you don’t have to watch the idiots in the background trying to get close enough to Nina Kraviz to smell her hair.

So yeah, my point. Below is a list of sets you can stream from BPM Festival on Be-At-Tv that are worth watching! This will be updated as we go, because well, there are a lot of sets to go through.

tINI (tINI and the Gang showcase)

tINI is just a well cool human being! We love her face, her hair, her music, her dress sense, her dance moves when she DJs and her girlfriend (she’s pretty hot too!). We love how she hangs around Sirocco Beach every Wednesday in Ibiza welcoming people to her gang and handing out stickers while posing for photos and having a well good time! She also DJs at the end of the night for an hour or two which is well good fun. Afterwards we all go to Fuse at Sankeys Ibiza and carry on.

So tINIs BPM set. It features tracks from herself, Room 305 obvs gets played as it’s just fricking ace. It also features her 2013 summer hit ‘Hot Baxx‘ on Supplement Facts and her new remix of Tiger Stripes – Sister out soon on Desolat. There is also tracks from Avatism,Dana Ruh and Jerome C – you should like these guys on Facebook – they’re good. Favourite part of the set comes mid way through (about 42 minutes to the hour mark) when tINI plays the Marcel Dettmannremix of ‘Those Hidden Hands – Laika‘.

PS…. That photo of tINI above where she’s smiling, dancing and DJ’ing at the same time – I took that while stalking her at Eastern Electrics Festival in August 2013 so if you’re going to steal it. Don’t. I will hunt you down with a stick and be sick on your shoes! I’m serious!

Solomun (Diynamic Showcase)

Solomun is the KING. It’s that simple. I didn’t think he was before I saw him as a special guest at Flying Circus in Ibiza. That night, he played B2B with his good buddy H.O.S.H and they killllleeddddd it. Since then I’ve been a fan of both of them and the Diynamic label. They have a real family vibe going on at Diynamic, they have lots of BBQ’s and play some sick as tits music!

So Solomun’s BPM set. The first twenty five minutes take you into this really really dark place. The whole set comes with a track list, except the first fifteen minutes which is a real shame because that is some serious tunage. Oliver Huntemann – Schatten is the tune at fifteen minutes. After that King Solomun does something I’ve not seen him do before, mixing together a few edits of his remix of Noir & Haze – Around. He does this for five minutes or so, and you get a real close up view of him at work on the decks as the camera stays in one position the whole time. Something else I really liked about his set is how he played Len Faki – Octupuss (being championed by Sven Vath ALOT, it’s INSANE) and mixed it into his own production ‘Something We All Adore‘ and then into the beautiful ‘Den Alte‘ (Kolsch) which never fails to bring a smile to my face. Quite a change in direction which shows the versatility Solomun has in his sets at the moment. The last tune is Solomun’s rework of The Foals – Late Night, a well good tune.

Watch out for Solomun’s excellent dancing skills, he’s in a ‘really good place’ during this set. Watch the set HERE on Be-At-Tv.

Mano le Tough (Life & Death Showcase)

Mano le Tough is someone I wasn’t very familiar with until May this year. Mano played the Circoloco opening party at Dc10 and after hearing about his set from friends I bought his album and became obsessed with him and his cool dress sense. His shirt in the photo above is from a Danish clothing brand named Soulland – check ‘em out. But because Mano was playing the Life & Death showcase, he of course wore all black for his set at BPM. It’s just standard procedure.

Unlike most of the sets I’ve listen to so far, this set takes place in the day so at the beginning it is a lot more laid back and isn’t in the dark territory that Tale of Us take us into later. The track that kick starts this set is the fucking ridiculous remix of Depeche Mode – Sinner In Me by Ricardo Villalobos. From then onwards, the crowd don’t stop moving and I didn’t either. The other highlights are when he plays four remixes from Ame, Barker & Baumecker, Martin Buttrich and Marcel Dettmann in a row. I have fell in love with the forthcoming Ame remix of Sailor & I – Turn Around - it’s delightful & it’s out soon on Life & Death – of course it fucking is! Also Marcel Dettmanns remix of Bad Kingdom – Moderat is a well good tune, as is the last track of the set by Motor City Drum Assemble!! Top set Mr. le Tough!

Tale of Us (Life & Death Showcase)

Tale of Us sets from Week 6 & 9 from ENTER. are the most played mixes on my mixes section on my iTunes. The duo absolutely dominated my life from April onwards and they deserved to be voted #2 in the RA Top 100 poll. Before I came to Ibiza in August 2013, I saw Tale of Us twice, both in Manchester at Visionquest 13 and Parklife Festival. At Parklife I was lucky enough to get a picture with them after watching their whole set five metres behind the decks as I worked for the Parklife Social Media team!

Their one hour forty five minute set BPM Festival is exactly what you would expect from them. There is this incredibly unique sound to their sets, deep moving emotional electronic music with waves of house, techno and tinges of acid is the only way I can go about describing it. There is this insane remix of The Knife – Pass This On by Dahlback & Dahlback, I’m guessing that is John & Jesper Dahlback, if so, that’s a real change in sound! I have only listened to this set in a pair of iPhone 5 headphones & I had to take them out for a second, God knows how fucking good it sounds in an actual pair of headphones!

At the end things get really naughty. There is a new track from Ten Walls aka Mario Basanov called Walking with Elephants which is probably going to be out on either Innervisions or Life & Death in the summer, an incredible remix of Fango – Wek by Despejado and the unreleased Mind Against – Several Times. As they have done in many of their recent sets, Tale of Us finish up with their own remix of Primitive People by Mano le Tough (serious tune of 2013 contender!).

PSS… if you’re interested Clare & Lydia behind the Beating Off Music blog have done two excellent articles on Fango & Ten Walls (Mario Basanov) – check them out in the links below & give their social network channels a like & a follow.

Adriatique (Diynamic Showcase)

Adriatique is a name that I cannot spell no matter how many times I try. The Swiss duo who are both named Adrian were apparently responsible for some of the best music on island of Ibiza last summer and I missed it all. ALL OF IT! That won’t be the case in 2014 as I’ll probably be attending most of the Diynamic showcases no matter how good the line ups are at Carl Cox around the corner at Space. Sorry Coxy! Even Coxy will admit that King Solomun really has put together a very talented young family at Diynamic.

I’m going to put this out there and say this is the best BPM set of them all! They have this real dark edge to their sound that just oozes out of sound systems, it’s similar to what makes me love Tale of Us so much. Their set starts off with Ten Walls – Walking With Elephants, and then from then on we are taken on an hour journey of subtle and melodic house cuts mixed together. This really is a duo you should all be watching out for – their new EP on Culprit LA is what Will.I.Am would call Dope, and what we would call a well good EP. Go buy it. Unless you get music sent for free by PR’s, then you can just click download and save and enjoy it over and over again like I did.

Resident Advisor have put this set alongside Solomun in their top highlights of The BPM Festival so it’s gotta be good! Great minds and all that!I have listened to it at least five times. IT’S THAT GOOD!

The re-opening of Sankeys Manchester felt like four parties in one. In the new look Basement we had Rossko & Seb Zito going back-to-back representing FUSE, Audiofly representing Flying Circus, Darius Syrossian representing VIVa Warriors and upstairs in the Spektrum Article and Treehouse combined as one with special guest Mosca as the main attraction. Some may say that this party lacked an A-list headliner to open the club with a bang, but I disagree. What this party showcased was the artists that have taken the brand of Sankeys to a worldwide audience and it was only right that these artists took centre stage to reopening the club that in 2010 was nominated the best club in the world.

Sankeys Manchester is a club that lives in the tradition of the Hacienda and the first thing on entry (other than the obvious turn-around of the DJ booth) that you noticed was the black and yellow striped poles that are a characteristic of many Manchester venues. What I liked about the new look venue the most was how the Basement remained raw and intimate, before it was too easy to get distracted by heading outside or into ‘The Bar’ area where a local DJ would be flicking through his collection playing music that had no relevance to what was going on in the Main Room behind a door and a wall of L.E.D lights. With the thin strobe lights flicking between red, blue and green creating a colourful mist all night long, ‘The Basement’ was looking as good as it’s ever looked and the new DJ Booth position and set-up will no doubt be a favourite of artists from all over the world.

The first two DJs who got to break in the new Sankeys set up was Rossko and Seb Zito. With three hours to play with the duo who are no strangers to playing together took the opportunity to experiment with their track selection early on before settling on a groove that blended their early garage routes with heavy basslines and broken, hip shaking rhythms that has become internationally accepted as ‘Fusic’. With this being the opening, people were here for a party and immediately you could sense there was a relationship between the DJ and the crowd.

Although the crowd was young, there was an element of trust and that continued into the early morning as Audiofly took to the decks to take us into a deeper and darker vibe. With my personal taste getting darker and darker, this set was my favourite of the night. Audiofly took us into a different realm, focusing on long progressive build ups and break downs that controlled the movements of the dance floor around me. The highlight, no doubt was the beautifully crafted ‘Leonix’ (Marcus Worgull & Peter Pardeike) whirling around the Basements four walls, sending shivers down my shine. There may have been more hand in the air moments in the sets before and after, but the feeling of floating in the clouds while your feet stay firmly on the floor is a feeling I have missed since the closing of the Ibiza season.

The man who will take away all the plaudits from this opening night is Mr. Darius Syrossian. Joining his set about an hour in, the jacking house sound created a completely different vibe to the Basement, an electric party atmosphere you would associate with Sunday nights at Sankeys Ibiza. The vibrations could be felt underneath your feet, as Darius took the crowd in a number of different directions. The Sankeys and VIVa resident is an artist with a loyal following and he could do no wrong with his track selections, making it all seem so effortless, showing his versatility ranging from the sounds of Deetron, to Sis to Carl Craig to the Happy Mondays. With an entourage cheering him on from inside the booth, stand out moments came towards the end as Todd Terje’s Inspector Norse got everyone dancing with a smile on their face before the break down of Hot Since 82s collaboration with Joe T Vanille – The End provided one of the strongest connections that I have felt between a crowd and a DJ! Emotional stuff!

It was a pleasure to watch three acts (four DJs) from three different parties showcasing their unique sound under one roof. With the Sankeys brand about to head into their third decade, The Basement of Sankeys has been the main event and these three parties are set to play a huge role in the 20th Anniversary of Sankeys.

UPDATE:

Fuse residents Rossko & Seb Zito have uploaded their incredible three hour set on to their Soundcloud. Listen below.

After closing their doors for the first time in 13 years, Sankeys Manchester returns this weekend with a festive programme that will keep you dancing well into the New Year. The ‘Rise of the Phoenix‘ launch weekend sees sets from Darius Syrossian, Audiofly, Seb Zito and Rossko, Dyed Soundorom, Andrea Olivia and Lee Burridge. With Friday’s event already sold out, eyes are now on the events that lead us into the New Year.

In the summer, VIVa Warriors became Sankeys leading night, Boxing Day sees VIVA head honcho Steve Lawler lead the charge with a special VIVa Showcase with a live performance from Detlef and a special appearance from Matthias Tanzmann. There is a special relationship forming between these three artists, after Steve Lawler recently remixed Detlef’s latest release on Tanzmanns Moon Harbour imprint. Look for that to continue into 2014, as Matthias joins VIVa as the label showcase at BPM Festival in January.

Upstairs in the Spektrum, VIVa cohorts Departure bring their much loved residents to the party along with New York Sankeys regular Dave Rosario and Miss Soulfly, a DJ who battled stiff competition to win her residency through a Burns Studio contest.

Saturday 28th sees Sankeys welcomes one of the most talented acts in the electronic music scene. As one half of the world-renowned act Soulwax, 2ManyDJs have forged a lauded reputation for eclectic sets that keep the dance floor rocking, and they will joined by unannounced special guests and Belgium duo, Freestylers, who returned earlier this year with their first album for six years.

Closing the year in style, Sankeys on New Years Eve sees one of the leading artists of the past five years headline proceedings. After releasing music on Visionquest, Cocoon and Hot Creations, Butch has recently collaborated with Cocoon hero Ricardo Villabolos on an EP ‘ButRic’ that has received rave reviews after being released as a limited vinyl release. Joining Butch is the founder of the highly regarded party FUSE, Enzo Siragusa. After becoming one of the most talked about nights on the island, FUSE recently celebrated it’s fifth birthday and remains true to its sound that is built around a series of residents. Fuse regular Julian Perez, Visionquest’s Shaun Reeves and long-term Sankeys resident Jozef K complete the line up.

Ahead of the Sankeys re-opening, Darius Syrossian has mixed this mix featuring tracks from Maxi Soundsystem, Cajmere and Rossoul and a huge remix of Thomas Schumacher’s Hush by Catz n Dogz.

Since debuting in 2011, Hideout Festival is now one of the highlights on the music calendar. Now into it’s 4th year, Hideout welcomes the worlds best DJs and live acts over a four day period in a stunning location with events taking place in a number of different venues.

This years line up features headline acts such as Disclosure (DJ Set), Loco Dice, Solomun, and Sasha and a number of artists breaking through as Hideout caters to all genres. With more announcements to come up, their is a strong house and techno presence with stand out names Guti, Davide Squillace, Apollonia, Mano le Tough, John Talabot, Ten Walls, Tale of Us, tINI and Daniel Avery all announced.Other highlights include DJ EZ, Oneman, Joy Orbison, and Artwork.

When Marco Carola closed out Amnesia around 6pm on Sunday 5th October we thought it was would the last we saw of the Italian techno God in 2013 in Ibiza. How wrong we were. For the first time Amnesia will be opening it’s doors on New Years Eve bringing in the New Year in style. Joining Marco on the Terrace will be Jamie Jones, Music On regular Marc Antona and Leon while in the ‘Club Room’ (Main Room), Pan Pot will take centre stage alongside Amnesia favourite Mar-T and Neverdogs who impressed many at Amnesia’s closing party last season.

What a lovely to start the New Year this will be and what a perfect warm up for Circoloco at Dc10.

As one of the three guys behind record label Innervisions, Dixon and the duo Ame has brought us timeless releases from Agoria, Ten Walls and Michael Gracioppo to name a few. As a DJ, Dixon also produced mind-blowing performances at Paradise, Cocoon and We Love in an Innervisions Showcase in September.

In the interview below Dixon is allowed to speak his mind, talking about the electronic music scene through his eyes and how he manages to protect Innervisions from being branded by music blogs and magazines. We think Dixon just did his very own DJ Pierre interview.

“If long-term thinking is the basis, you’re going to die, if you’ve got one big hit and just repeat that four times. That’s why I believe it’s really important to not satisfy this demand. Only very few people can handle this balance act between giving and withholding.” – Dixon